The 2nd round went almost precisely according to script, leaving us with some high-profile matchups for a mere third round. The closest third-rounders on paper (my paper, anyway) are Almagro/Verdasco and Tipsarevic/Dolgopolov. While Federer and (particularly) Murray have big-serving challenges this round, Djokovic and Nadal are set to coast. The only question is: How many games will Novak allow Troicki to win this time?
Player R16 QF SF W (1)Novak Djokovic 85.0% 70.8% 52.1% 25.2% (27)Viktor Troicki 15.0% 7.3% 2.5% 0.2% (17)Richard Gasquet 79.2% 20.0% 8.4% 1.1% Albert Ramos 20.8% 1.9% 0.3% 0.0% (11)Juan Martin Del Potro 67.7% 45.2% 20.0% 6.0% (23)Marin Cilic 32.3% 15.9% 4.7% 0.6% (30)Julien Benneteau 36.1% 11.0% 2.6% 0.2% (5)David Ferrer 63.9% 27.9% 9.4% 1.6% Player R16 QF SF W (3)Roger Federer 75.0% 52.3% 38.6% 12.3% (31)Andy Roddick 25.0% 11.1% 5.4% 0.5% (21)Juan Monaco 33.2% 9.0% 3.9% 0.3% (14)Gael Monfils 66.8% 27.7% 16.8% 2.9% (12)Nicolas Almagro 50.8% 23.0% 7.5% 0.7% (20)Fernando Verdasco 49.2% 21.8% 7.0% 0.6% (28)Kevin Anderson 38.7% 18.7% 5.8% 0.5% (8)Mardy Fish 61.3% 36.5% 15.0% 2.2% Player R16 QF SF W (7)Tomas Berdych 74.7% 47.0% 23.3% 4.7% Grigor Dimitrov 25.3% 9.0% 2.2% 0.1% (18)Alexandr Dolgopolov 48.8% 21.1% 7.8% 0.8% (9)Janko Tipsarevic 51.2% 23.0% 8.7% 1.0% (13)Gilles Simon 57.8% 19.2% 8.8% 1.0% (22)Jurgen Melzer 42.2% 11.3% 4.3% 0.3% (26)Milos Raonic 27.1% 14.5% 6.8% 0.8% (4)Andy Murray 72.9% 54.9% 38.1% 12.1% Player R16 QF SF W (6)Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 68.1% 40.5% 19.5% 4.4% (32)Philipp Kohlschreiber 31.9% 13.1% 4.2% 0.4% (19)Florian Mayer 39.8% 16.2% 5.5% 0.6% (10)John Isner 60.2% 30.2% 13.0% 2.4% (16)Kei Nishikori 77.3% 29.0% 14.1% 2.3% Lukas Rosol 22.7% 3.9% 0.9% 0.0% (25)Radek Stepanek 16.0% 5.7% 1.6% 0.1% (2)Rafael Nadal 84.0% 61.5% 41.2% 13.9%
And it’s happened yet again! Andy Murray has had a potentially rather dangerous opponent swept out of his path. Bye, Falla (No. 71), walkover… and suddenly he’s in the quarter-final. Facing an opponent who WON’T be Tomas Berdych, but either Tipsarevic or Dimitrov.
Whereas Tsonga gets Kohlschreiber, probably Isner, and probably Nadal. And Del Potro gets a bye, Karlovic, Cilic, probably Ferrer, and then in the quarter-final probably Djokovic.
Is it any wonder Murray clings tenaciously to the #4 ranking year after year? How does he do it?
Only to the fourth round, but it’s certainly an easy path.
I don’t know if Murray really gets more of this sort of luck than the other three — after all, Djokovic drawing Troicki is roughly the same thing — but I doubt the luck has much to do with him staying in the top 4. That’s due to the combination of his occasional major win over the rest of the big four and the lack of anybody else showing up to knock him out. We both love Del Potro, but him hanging around the fringes of the top 10 can’t be entirely due to tough draws.
Of course Tsonga begins with a bye too, like all the seeds.
Well, Delpo’s record so far this year speaks for itself. He has lost five times: once to Baghdatis, before he really found his groove, and four times to Federer, who is the world #1 based on this year’s results only. If that isn’t bad luck, it’s a construct of the rating system which repeatedly slams him into Federer at the quarter-final stage. Whereas Murray, being #4, tends to get whoever is #8, #12, etc. (I’m not quite sure of the excact numbers, but the logic is something like that).
This year, yes — but the ranking ‘race’ puts him at #6 (by a whisker behind Murray). Bad luck, but not out-of-the-top-10 bad luck. http://live-tennis.eu/race
On the board for the last 12 months, though, are losses to Mannarino, Cilic, Gulbis, Blake, Simon, and Granollers. If he got the worst possible draw every week and got far enough to lose to Fed/Rafa/Novak every time, I’ll be he’d still be top 5 or 6.
I like this comment from the ATP site:
“…the Argentine is 3-0 this year against Top 10 players not named Federer”.